Turkey Day

So this week has been a bit of a crazy holiday type of a thing.  First of all Monday was a pretty crazy day and on that wonderful P-day we literally played Basketball at the church for like 4 hours, which felt so good. I haven't done that in a long time, so about half way through I was completely exhausted, so we worked for a bit that night, came home and zonked out faster than a candle in a room filled with carbon dioxide. which leads us to the next day, so the Zone Leader Elder O'niones and Rosenlund, both of which are pretty active especially when they are put together. they just feed off of each other and get to the extreme but both are playing around which ends up being pretty funny, Well they had to go to Zone Leader Conference. which then led us to not have a ride all day, so what did we do we walked and walked and walked, but really it wasn't that far. Our area really isn't that big it's just super nice to have a car when you have an appointment on one side of the world then on the other and you only  got 5 minutes to get there. So a car is super cool, In fact that night we went to dinner at sister Walkers house who is really one of the coolest members in the ward, She was baptized like 2 years ago and is now super strong with what she believe in and every thing else. She is super smart too. So an awesome dinner with her and then hung around with the Spanish elders and one of them was a temporary missionary who is actually in Peru and we found out that it was his last day before leaving to Peru. But way before that me and Hibbert were just doing some tracting in a neighborhood where we could walk to because we are in one of those finding stages, and the cool thing was that we were able to find like 4 people who said sure come on back and teach us a bit, but not in a couple of days because it's thanksgiving. So we now have a full week of revisiting people.  The really neat thing about this is it's a completely different attitude from those in Ozark who have been in their ways for the last umpteen years and are happy with what they have got. People here I think are more open to what's going on, but  it's harder to pin them down because there's a lot of other things to do instead of just go to Wal-mart. So Tuesday was a success along with Wednesday which was similar. So that leads us to the infamous Turkey day

So what does a Missionary do an such a joyous occasion?  You're right, stuff himself to where he can't eat a single bite more. Now how does this happen?  Well it first starts with waking up and getting everything ready for the day and finding something to do before your first dinner, which this day started at 2 pm, so being smart we head to waffle house to plan for the upcoming week and what we need to do so we can get all the people that want us to come back in a day that works for them and us. and what do we do in such a thing as waffle house?  Eat of course and we get their most famous items, which are their waffles, duh, and their hash browns with everything. and we eat that at noon thirty. so we finish that, us and the Spanish elders who are Elder Judd and Elder Wood, Judd has been out about 20 months and Wood has been out 3 weeks so it's his first area and he is a really cool guy well both of them are, It's a really nice thing to have another companionship in our area to talk to, when i get sick of listening to Rosenlund saying he's got two weeks left and then he'll be sleeping in his own bed. and all that other fun things that happen when arriving at home. so we finish up and head over to the members house where we eat and eat again. then we save a little room where we can eat again because we have another dinner appointment at 5 pm. so by the time we are done with that it's 4pm and then we headed to the mission home where Sister and President Jensen invited us to have a "little" thanks giving dinner with them so we had a great time and ate just enough to be filled then headed to another appointment at least the Spanish guys did and they ate again at 630pm and after a great meal they headed to another investigators house where all of us went in and they fed us again at like 730pm and of course it was a Spanish house were if we didn't eat their food they would be offended. So I took a bullet and started eating off of others plates so that they wouldn't get into trouble and every thing else. we then headed off to one more place for the night, where the zone leaders were at where they offered us some more food, but we politely turned it down. Now the kicker of the whole night when i weighed myself, from the first time to this time right after all of the food. I put on 6 pounds of food through out the day. which made the night very very uncomfortable. and I now know that eating too much is very much a bad idea.

So I think I'm still working off all of the food that I somehow packed away. which leads us to the rest of the weekend, seeing how most people in the south love football and seeing how it was rivalry weekend it made work a whole lot harder because people would be getting mad at us for interrupting their "games." But we did hear about all the games and everything that was going on in the world of football. For example we found out that byu and utah played and that utah won by a point about 5 minutes after it was done. We also found out that one of the missionaries who served here and plays on the utah team made some big plays, Elder Rogers. he's the tight end and his number is 89 and is very much a big kid.

So that leads us to Sunday where we had a great sacrament meeting It has probably become one of the most favorite things on my mission to do. It was a really neat experience to see everyone who talked talked about things out of preach my gospel and I love seeing how everything connects to each other. because that is what the gospel is all about.  It's all connected and it all get us closer to god and to become one big happy family.


I love all you guys
Elder Gillespie

Clint and Melissa CONGRATS!  I'm impressed and in awe of your willingness to find out for yourself. and to make those necessary steps to start your journey back to Heavenly Father.

Mom and dad I'm doing great and me and hibbert are doing really good together and we are getting things done.

Jethrobyn you guys are so cool and i'm impressed for your steadiness of writing, as for titles try the funniest quote of the week from either your kids or your students, maybe that could help? as for you Miss Robyn your kids are just so darn cute and doing so well i can't believe that it's been so long since i last saw all of them. please take a lot of photos when beetle gets home.

Ben gains HOLY COW that was a crazy story much more intense than mine we just started pulling out from a stop sign thinking that it was a 4 way stop.  I know that angels are looking out for you and that sounds like quite the snow storm that you all had. I'm so glad that you guys don't have a huge damage to yourselves, what I tell myself is that it's the outlook on life that's going to get us through our problems.

Beetle you're awesome and don't let anyone else tell you differently and don't let others pull you down. I tried to get a letter to you as soon as you arrived but i don't know for sure when it'll get there though.

love you all